New Delhi: A private jet to Karnataka carrying Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley made an emergency landing at New Delhi airport nine minutes after taking off on Monday morning. The leaders were on their way to campaign for the May 5 Assembly elections in the state.

Pilot of the aircraft informed Air traffic control (ATC) of technical issue and returned back to the airport. The turbine powered Challenger jet is owned by a Mumbai-based company called Eon Aviation. Aviation aircraft like this one are like chartered planes that can be hired for private travel; they are not commercial aircraft.

BJP general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan and Joint General Secretary (Organisation) V Satish were also on-board the aircraft when the incident took place. ATC sources said the pilot took the correct action of landing the aircraft after the problem was detected.

Rajnath, Swaraj and Jaitley were supposed to address a party rally in the state. It is unlikely the top BJP leaders will fly back to Bangalore now and they may just address the rally via video conference.

Karnataka will go to polls on May 5 to elect its 224-member Assembly. Counting of votes will be held on May 8. While 36 constituencies are reserved for SCs, 15 are reserved for STs in the state. There are a total of 4.18 crore voters in Karnataka.